West Jefferson schools may have to shift students because of overcrowding

Susan Poag / The Times-PicayuneRon Bennett,far right, teaches his weekly art class in the atrium at Catherine Strehle Elementary School in Avondale because of a lack of extra classrooms. To address the disproportionate number of white students, the school's boundaries were enlarged to pull in more black students. As a result, the student population shot up from 430 to 650 this year.

There is no room for an art room at the crowded Catherine Strehle Elementary in Avondale.

On a recent morning, art class spilled into the school's front lobby, where students sprawled across the floor, painting self-portraits and using whatever was handy -- an empty flower pot, a cardboard box -- to prop up their canvases.

In a perfect world, all teachers would have their own classrooms, Principal Patti Waddell said. But at Strehle, where the population exploded this year because of boundary changes stemming from the district's desegregation order, extra rooms are a thing of the past.

"I feel like we've been super-sized, you know, like at a fast food place, " Waddell said. "We had to rethink everything, rethink our procedures, make changes. It's been a challenge."

The severe crowding that has emerged this year at Strehle and also at Estelle Elementary in Marrero is forcing officials with the Jefferson Parish public school system to consider shifting some students around next year to ease the crunch.

Estelle, whose student population stood at 980 last year, had more than 1,050 students by November. Officials believe a new subdivision caused the bump.

The district is aware of the crowding problem and is devising a plan to resolve it for next year, according to schools spokesman Jeff Nowakowski.

"It didn't sneak up on us, " he said. "We just need some good demographics and more research. The planning department is working hard on it."

Some proposals under consideration include shifting and consolidating programs, such as special education, or tweaking attendance zones, Nowakowski said. The district also is mindful of many disruptions during the past four years and hopes to not move students already forced to switch schools under the desegregation order, he said.

Any changes must be approved by the School Board and then by U.S. Judge Kurt Engelhardt, who is overseeing the district's desegregation process.

To ensure that the judge approves its request, the district must heed the desegregation order's quotas, which call for schools to maintain certain racial breakdowns. Any proposed changes must produce favorable balances and more desegregated student populations.

"It's going to take some very fine juggling to make this work, " Nowakowski said.

At Strehle, the changes this year were largely driven by the original racial makeup of the school. Last year, Strehle had a disproportionate number of white students for a West Bank campus, according to the order's guidelines. To address the imbalance, the school's boundaries were enlarged to pull in more black students.

As a result, the student population, formerly at 430, shot up to 650 this year, which officials attributed to unanticipated demographic shifts and a new subdivision. But the school has also achieved desegregated status, as the vast majority of the new students are black.

Despite the fact that more than half of her students are new this year and every class is at or near capacity, Waddell described the shift as a positive thing, saying it took little time for the school community to come together.

To address the space shortage, she has come up with creative fixes by reorganizing classroom layouts and carving an English as a Second Language classroom out of a custodial storage space.

Waddell said she is concerned about the future and the possibility of another round of student shuffling. But the past year has taught her to roll with the punches.

"You just have to do what you need to do, that's the bottom line, " she said. "Even if we had 1,000 kids, we'd just do what we needed to do."

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Jenny Hurwitz can be reached at jhurwitz@timespicayune.com or 504. 826.3784.